


Night Terrors

by wilyasha



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Gamora-centric, Gen, Past Sexual Abuse, Spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War, Team as Family, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 09:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14445876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilyasha/pseuds/wilyasha
Summary: When she wakes, Mantis is by her side, holding her hand. Warm tears stream down her cheeks and over her smiling lips. Has she been crying this entire time?





	Night Terrors

**Author's Note:**

> I’m so behind on my Marvel fanfics, but this is the ~~long-awaited~~ sequel to [Found](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8214758). It's not really that important to read that though. This is honestly my fix-it attempt on Yondu being dead, Nebula leaving, and Thor ending up floating in space after Thanos’ attack on the Asgardian/Sakaaran refugee ship. This also is Gamora-centric, based on the altercation she has with Mantis on Ego’s planet. It isn’t meant to line up with the events of Avengers: Infinity War (I did tag for spoilers just in case), but it is more of an AU of up-to-date film canon and the occasional tip of the hat to the comics. There’ll be a third fic after I see Infinity War. There’s a lot of stuff I wanted to cram in this story, but ultimately I didn’t want to over do it. Welp. Here it goes.

“Please,” Gamora says, her arms crossed over her chest as she watches her sister scurry around the room. 

“You’ve asked me eleven times,” Nebula sneers, shoving a few packs of unopened ammo into the bag. “I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Please?” 

Nebula tilts her head to the side, as if waiting for the next-

“Please?”

Nebula lets out a nasty snarl, throwing clean underwear at Gamora as if it’s a grenade ready to explode. The other sister easily side steps out of the way. 

“It’s just one mission to Earth,” Gamora comments. “We just need to meet with these Avengers, exchange ideas, and then we can leave again. It’s not that serious.”

“I’m leaving, Gamora. No amount of begging is going to change my mind,” Nebula says. “There’s a freighter outside of Skrull territory. They’re mining some habitable moon. I’ll work some odd jobs until you all get back.”

Gamora tenses. That isn’t something she wants Nebula to have to do. She’s struggled enough. Working on a mining outpost that shares a tenuous border with a people that have been known to be less than genuine… it just isn’t something she wants her sister doing.

“Let Smurfette do what she wants,” Quill drawls from the doorway. “I’d rather she bail out before we get any closer to this solar system. I don’t know how advanced Terra is anymore.”

Gamora grits her teeth and tosses Quill a scathing look. He raises his hands in mock defeat. 

“Your boyfriend is right,” Nebula retorts. “I’m leaving. I’ll see you in a couple of months when my contract is finished. Get over it. This is my life. Not yours. Not Proxima’s.” There’s barely a pause. “Not Dad’s.”

Quill hisses from behind them as if the mere mention of Thanos will bring him aboard the Quadrant. 

“Quill, give us a moment?” Gamora starts. 

The leader of the Guardians shuffles his feet. “Yeah, um, wow. I think I hear Yondu calling me. Maybe… maybe it’s Drax or--”

“Get out,” she says brusquely. “Now.”

“Yup,” he says, shutting the door behind him. “I’m gone.”

Gamora waits until she can’t hear his feet clanking on metal.

“I know what you’re doing,” she finally admits. 

Nebula shrugs, continuing to shovel in ammo packs and undergarments.

“You’re going to try and kill him. On your own.” Gamora sighs, her green skin flushing with anger. “You realize how stupid that is?”

Silence.

“We’re a team,” Gamora says. “We’re a team. We work together now. I’m not leaving you behind and you’re certainly not leaving me behind so you can go play the hero and kill Thanos yourself.”

“Jealous?” Nebula asks. “That I can do it without you?” She turns to face Gamora, a smirk pulling at her lips. Her black eyes glisten with mirth.

“This isn’t funny.”

“It is to me,” Nebula says before turning back to her task. 

Gamora knows she won’t be able to reach her. Once Nebula has set her mind on something, it isn’t easy to distract her from her objective. Better to give her space and then pile on the guilt. 

-

“Aren’t you the least bit interested in meeting Loki’s brother?” Gamora asks later that night. She’s following Nebula through the twisting, narrow halls. She’s heading to the galley to pick up provisions before leaving on some haphazardly constructed vehicle. The protective part of Gamora almost wants to handcuff her sister again. It’s worked once, but Nebula will probably try to chew her remaining organic hand off to get out. 

“No,” she says plainly. “In fact, I’d rather never see another Odinson ever again.”

Gamora gnashes her teeth together. Quick on her feet, she scrambles to the front and stands in Nebula’s way.

“Move.”

“No,” Gamora says. “Not until you hear me out.”

“You’ve got five seconds to get out of my way before I-”

Gamora slams Nebula against the wall, pressing the palm of her hand over her sister’s mouth. 

“Can you just shut up and listen to me?” 

Nebula mumbles faintly against Gamora’s fingerless glove. She uncovers her mouth. 

“What was that?”

“Yes, I’ll listen,” Nebula retorts. “But be quick about this.”

“I told you once,” Gamora ignores her sister’s last jab. “I told you that we guardians… we look out for one another. We protect each other. I’m not going to let you go fight Thanos alone. Not when I should be by your side when we take him down. Together.”

Gamora watches as Nebula’s throat works, the harsh swallow, the glisten of unshed tears in her eyes. It’s taken them years to get to this point. To be so open with one another. They’ve always been equals, but Thanos has played them against each other. Gamora had tried to protect Nebula, even if it didn’t appear that way. 

_Fight together,_ Gamora thinks. _That’s the only way we’ll survive this._

Nebula looks away, gathering her bearings before facing Gamora once more. 

“You helped us deal with that crazy priestess. You helped us defeat Peter and Mantis’ crazy dad,” Gamora presses on. “We’ll work together on this. With the additional help of the Avengers. I’m sure Loki’s brother wants to take a few swings at Thanos, too. Please, Nebula.”

A slow smile breaks across Nebula’s sweating face. “The universe seems to be clouded by crazy fathers.”

Gamora lets out a breath of relief. “Yeah, and it’s our job to take them down.”

-

That night Gamora dreams of Proxima. 

There’s a wild gaze in her eyes. Gamora cries and cries, begging for Proxima to come with them. 

“You’ll be safer with us. Come home.”

“I am home,” Proxima hisses before jamming the end of her spear into Gamora’s gut.

She awakens to find herself wedged on her tiny bed sandwiched between Mantis and Nebula. The both of them can’t seem to sleep by themselves these days. She takes a deep breath, her heart thumping wildly beneath her chest.

Gamora knows Proxima is lost to them. 

Proxima is unreachable. She would never join them to become a guardian. She surrounds herself with their other siblings. She feels unrestrained among them, like she can do anything as long as Thanos allows her to conquer in his name. She’s wild and unfettered, clinical in her execution. Proxima will do anything to please the warlord, because she believes in what he’s doing. She acknowledges that the only true god is death and _She_ is unavoidable. 

Gamora carefully rises from the bed and slips slowly from the room. She wanders the halls. Past Drax’s room where he snores noisily. She passes Kraglin sleepwalking back to bed with a cup of water in his shaky hand. She finds herself outside Quill’s room and she hesitantly knocks. 

It only takes a moment for the metal door to creak open and for a disheveled human to answer it.

“‘Mora?” His voice is groggy and he scrubs at his eyes with the back of his hand like a child. “What’s wrong? You okay?”

“Can I sleep with you for the night?” 

Peter wordlessly nods, opening the door wider to let her in. His room is clean for once, probably in need of some dusting, but it’s better than usual. He lets her climb into the bed first, her back pressed against the chilly wall, before climbing in after. He settles the thin sheet over the both of them, readjusts the pillow and pulls her close. It’s been like this for weeks and she doesn’t dare ask what they are. 

_He’s your boyfriend, you moron,_ she can hear Nebula’s irritated voice pulse in her head.

“You okay?” he repeats.

“Just a nightmare.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

She closes her eyes, feels his calloused palm rest on her cheek, his fingers curling around the shell of her ear.

“Are you worried about Terra?” Gamora asks, opening her eyes to stare at Peter’s boyish face.

“Kinda,” he says. “I’m more worried about a bunch of aliens greeting a bunch of humans. First contact and all.”

“Odinson is an alien.”

“Thor is a god.”

“He’s an alien.”

“He’s a god.”

Gamora shakes her head in annoyance but leans into him nevertheless. 

“But I am worried,” Peter says, his tone serious. “Mostly about our safety. Whether or not this is the right thing to do. I’ve been talking to the Stark guy and he’s been telling me about some of the shady shit that goes on down there. Stuff I wouldn’t have even imagined while I was a kid in Missouri. But part of me is just scared. What if Thanos wins? What if he gets these Infinity Stones? All of them. What happens then?”

Peter has always been an open book. It’s an endearing and vulnerable trait. It fills Gamora with the strangest feeling. The desire to be more affectionate. It’s something that an assassin isn’t supposed to display. Empathy. Sympathy. Affection. Love. She’s unused to all of it. But the way he speaks, flirtatious yet charming, it makes her stomach flutter and her cheeks flush. Even when he discusses something as sour as Thanos winning the battles to come. Gamora feels safe in this moment, tucked in Star-Lord’s bunk.

“We will defeat him,” she murmurs against the fabric of his worn shirt. “We will, Peter. We just have to gain more allies, more people who are willing to stand up and fight. If these Avengers need to defend their planet, we must make sure they understand that they must defend the galaxy too.”

Peter’s thumb strokes across her sharp cheekbone. He nods solemnly, eyes fluttering shut. She follows suit, closing her eyes and drifting off.

“He still considers himself a god.” Peter breaks the silence, laughter bubbling in his chest. “We should respect that. You know, since I’m half-god and all.”

Gamora can’t help but smile.

-

They’re about two and a half weeks from Terra. Peter wants to take his time getting there. He wants to take no part in using those highway portals even though Yondu and Rocket insist on getting there early. 

Trepidation fills her gut every time they mention speeding up the travel schedule. She keeps having nightmares. Her time on Tartoonla. The hands. The groping. Every memory makes her sweat, fills her with hopelessness. The assault plays on a loop in her head. The moment she lost Thanos in the crowd, the pungent smell of urine, the concerned faces of Proxima and Nebula when they returned, her brothers arguing with Thanos in private. She remembers the blood sluiced across the bazaar’s dirt floor: blue, green, yellow, red, a color wheel of lives lost. She remembers it streaked across Thanos’ marked chin. She remembers her father’s strong arms as he lifted her, carrying her back to the space shuttle. The push and pull in the change of gravity, the soft whirring of machinery. The deep baritone of her father’s voice, so soothing when it’s not barking orders at her. The bright lights as her eyes fluttered open and her vision cleared, strapped to a gurney with the taste of steel in her mouth. It’s all a flash of videos playing on an endless loop.

When she wakes up, she spits blood into her open palm. _Father._ She’s always telling Nebula that he isn’t their dad, but here she is clinging to their inescapable past. It’s so deeply embedded in her psyche that part of her doesn’t even want to be free from it. Her past makes her whole, a being that’s been through something that only a handful of creatures ever experience across the universe. 

With a series of twitchy movements, Peter sits up, breathing raggedly as he looks her over. 

“Gamora? What’s wrong?” His words are slurred with sleep, yet his eyes are perceptively bright. “Another nightmare?”

Her mouth runs dry, her fingers gripping tightly to the bed sheet. “Tartoonla.” 

Peter’s gaze widens and with wary hands, he pulls her closer. They rest back on the overstuffed pillow smelling of cheap cologne. 

“You don’t have to talk about it,” he says. “You don’t have to talk about Proxima or Thanos either.”

Gamora’s grip tightens. 

“But… have you told Nebula about the dreams?” he asks.

Gamora shakes her head. “I can’t.”

Silence fills the room once more. She almost believes he’s fallen back asleep, but then he lets out a long drawn-out sigh. 

“You don’t always have to be so strong, you know?” He pauses, threading his fingers through her long hair. “We’re family. Remember that when you always feel like carrying around this extra weight.”

-

It takes Gamora four days to summon the courage to seek out Mantis’ assistance.

“You want me to help you sleep?” she asks airily. Her big eyes swimming with tears, as if she can already feel how strung out and exhausted Gamora is, how frightened she is of this next great leap. 

The ex-assassin nods. “Yeah, just do whatever you need to do.”

Mantis does it in Peter’s room. Makes Gamora lie down on warm sheets. Slips a soft hand down Gamora’s face. She feels it before she knows what’s happening. A distant cry as Mantis empathizes with her pain and suffering and suspicion. There’s a silken sensation cascading through her body like white mist spritzing across already damp flesh. 

When she opens her eyes, she sees a warm sun shining from above. Pillars rise from the ground like great monoliths, the architecture vaguely familiar in this new dreamscape. A low humming breezes past her ear and she can’t help but giggle aloud. 

“Face forward.” This voice, familiar like the location, is a honeyed contralto. It makes her chest ache, her heart skipping a beat. “I’m not done yet, my sweetness.” 

A hairbrush grazes lightly across her hair, smoothing back the dark tresses away from her face. Salt gathers in her throat. She chokes, as if her blood is coagulating in her veins and stomach acid has finally made it through the organ’s lining. 

“What’s that?” The voice asks. The sound of a spaceship thrumming outside the domicile makes the shadowy figure stand abruptly. 

“Wait, no!” Gamora says. _Please not another nightmare. I don’t want to see this again._ The days leading to the annihilation of her people and her culture. All of it crushed beneath a warlord’s fist. 

The figure stalls in its movements. “Don’t fret, my sweetness. I’ll stay here with you.”

Unlike her previous nightmares, the figure--the voice--returns. For once, Gamora is safe. 

When she wakes, Mantis is by her side, holding her hand. Warm tears stream down her cheeks and over her smiling lips. Has she been crying this entire time?

“How long have I been out?” Gamora asks, attempting to sit up. 

“Ten hours.” 

Gamora’s gaze snaps up to see Nebula leaning against the closed door with her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes are narrowed, shrewdly analyzing her. 

“You should have told me you were having nightmares about Tartoonla, you idiot,” Nebula says abrasively. “You give me this ridiculous speech about being sisters and fighting beside each other. You want me to trust you, but you can’t even-”

“Please don’t be vindictive,” Gamora interrupts. “I can’t deal with it right now.”

For a fraction of a second, Nebula’s face softens before her usual disgruntled expression reappears.

“Drax and Yondu made dinner,” Nebula grits out. “You should show up and eat some before we reach Earth.”

“What?” Gamora warbles. “We’re that close?”

“Star-Lord caught a few gates while you were out of it,” Nebula says, shifting on her feet. “We’re going to reach those humans earlier than expected.”

Gamora gives her a tight nod.

“Nebula, wait,” she calls out, just as the other ex-assassin pulls open the door. “This dream… this dream was different. My mother was there. She was alive and she was brushing my hair. It was a good dream.”

Nebula looks back, the corner of her mouth lifting into a grin before she gives one of her own stoic nods. “Good. I’m glad.” She leaves the room, her boots stomping down the hallway as she walks away.

Gamora takes a deep breath.

“Are siblings usually this strange?” Mantis asks with an awkward giggle.

“Probably,” Gamora grins.

-

The debris field is tough to maneuver through and even Rocket is having difficulty. 

“Let me pilot the damn ship,” Yondu drawls, shoving his way through the cockpit. “You two boys couldn’t find your way out of a paper bag.”

“You don’t have a co-pilot, old man,” Rocket snickers. 

“Yeah, Yondu,” Peter remarks. “Find yourself your own raccoon.

“Don’t call me that!” Rocket hisses, pulling on his pilot control and forcing them to lurch into an oncoming plank of metal. 

“What do you think happened here?” Mantis asks.

“Perhaps an accident,” Drax ponders aloud.

Nebula rolls her eyes, muttering something cynical under her breath. 

“Is that a person?” Gamora squints. 

“I am Groot.” More sarcasm for the resident teenager. 

“It may be a ghost ship, kid,” Yondu starts, “but I don’t want to stick around long enough to find out." Yondu looks back at Kraglin who fiddles around with a mapping device. “Kraglin, get on the navigation and find us a way out.”

“Yes, Captain,” Kraglin remarks shakily. “I’ll be glad to get outta here.”

Gamora can’t help but agree. There’s a body in the distance, floating between another piece of metal and what looks like frozen fabric. She’s seen these wrecks before, ships breaking apart like cracked eggs. Civilians spilling out like yolks into the vacuum of space. She’s seen this all before, partaking in the cruelty. She shares a look with Nebula.

“We need to get out of here,” she says. “Now.”

“Agreed,” Nebula remarks. “Pick a different star system to enter. We’ll visit Earth later.”

“What?” Peter sputters. “We’re so close. We’re almost-”

“Quill,” Rocket interrupts. “You gotta take a look at this.”

Gamora only wishes they could turn back now.


End file.
